Carménère: The Zombie Wine

graaaaaapes
In the 1860s, a phylloxera plague washed across the vineyards of Europe. Phylloxerae are aphids with a taste for the finer things, and they descend on a vineyard like it's their personal wine tasting.

France was particularly devastated, and the six noble red grapes of Bordeaux suffered. Particularly the beautiful, crimson carménère grape. When the dust settled, carménère … was extinct.

Or was it?

Cut to the 1990s, when oenologists making their way through the foreboding landscape of Chile looked up and saw a familiar grape lurching toward them. They were terrified overjoyed! Suspicions were confirmed: Some of what had been harvested in Chile and sold as merlot was actually the long-lost carménère. A few stray vines seem to have made their way over to the New World before the plague hit back in France, and carménère is now a primarily Chilean wine.

A Chilean wine that cannot die.

Happy Hallowine.